Remains
by redseeker
Summary: Series of short ficlets and drabbles written for various challenges, set in the same universe as 'Nothing Left'. AlucardxSeras, AU.
1. To Dream

hellsing-drops #74: "dawn and dusk"

* * *

She didn't miss the four-poster. As flashy as it was, she found that she only started to get a good day's sleep once she acquired a coffin of her own. If she dozed anywhere else, she would dream bizarre, frightening dreams; familiar, lost faces would parade before her, and the horrors of the battlefield would cram their way into her head, filtered down from her waking memories. Her master's face would hover above her, or behind her - always somewhere - watching, gauging, nodding in restrained approval as she ripped the head off a child, imperfectly restored to life. Her dreams were seas of ashes, rivers of flame; the heavy drone of zeppelins and the accompanying timpani of gunfire provided a soundtrack. Each evening she would wake with the smell of cordite still with her.

It was a little while after the war that she was able to get her hands on somewhere new to sleep. A simple affair, modern and rectangular, made of plain, varnished wood. No fancy decoration, no inscription. Just a smooth hinge, and a red velvet lining. She sprinkled soil on the velvet, her home soil, and always closed the lid tight.

After that, she always slept soundly. Sealed away from the world in her black, safe box - away from the ruined city and the bodies, from all that she had lost - she could pretend that none of it existed. She could let her realised nightmares dissolve.


	2. Ghosts

hellsing-drops #20: "family"

* * *

Seras missed her father. She missed her mother too, but she had always been a Daddy's girl, always been closer to him, and so she missed him more. She felt like a bad daughter for loving one parent more than the other, even though when she was young she hadn't seen anything wrong with that. It wasn't until after the men and the blood and the cupboard that she felt guilty, but only a long time after. Before that there had just been a lot of tears, and then a lot of nothing.

Sometimes she dreamt about him, while she slept motionless as death in her safe wooden box with the soft velvet lining. She would sit on his knee, and he'd smile, and say, "Seras, my best girl. I have to go away soon. Tell me - do you want to come with me?" And she would answer, "Yes," and then things would start to blur. Like rain-washed watercolours the images would run and warp and tumble over and into one another, until it was not her father who asked her, but a stranger in his place, with a lupine grin and eyes like wounds. And then she would remember her father dying, and remember that she was dead too.

When she awoke, in the glowing blue twilight, her father's shadow would be standing over her.


	3. Fascination

album-mix - distillers - coral fang #09: "love is paranoid"

* * *

It's raining again tonight. I blink the water from my eyes and peer into the darkness - night vision doesn't help in this murk.

"You're looking for something?" His voice is like the purr of a big cat, sneaking up behind me, stepping out of the shadows. I didn't hear him come near, but there he is, just his presence behind me, no heat, but the hard feel of his body at my back.

"No… not really," I reply. "I just wanted to look at the night." I know it sounds stupid, but he doesn't say anything. Instead he slips one arm around my waist, turns me toward him, and puts his other arm around my shoulders. It's possessive, but familiar. I feel safe here, and, if nothing else, with my head against his chest, I'm sheltered a little from the rain.

"Come back inside," he says.

"Yes," I answer, in the immediate, unthinking obedience he commands. "My master."

* * *

He bares his teeth, like he always does when he's angry. It's some kind of animal reflex. Spend too many decades treated like an animal, and you're going to end up vicious.

I just stare him down, raising one eyebrow slightly as if to say, "What are you going to do?"

He wouldn't shoot me. Teeth and claws, however, are a whole different game. You could say it's cathartic, this blood and heat and fury, hissing and scratching like cats, growling like dogs. The pain is sweet, like something lost. Something alive.

I can't even remember what I did to anger him now, now as I am rent apart. He fares little better, and as my teeth sink in his blood is warm and potent - sweet as syrup and bitter as vinegar - and I swallow hard. My monster.

* * *

And now he's looking up at me with those eyes of his… those blood coloured eyes that I haven't been able to rip from my mind in over twelve years. They're not like fire - more like embers… old, glowing dark amid ashes. I'm on all fours straddling his hips, his hands at my waist, clawing at my shirt. I lick my lips. The taste of his blood lingers, the taste of my own. There is no division.

Another kiss and I'm drowning, swallowed up all over again. We're truly one being - I am of him, and he made me. Father and lover. Hunter and prey. I bite down, savour the taste, draw him in.

My murderer, my mentor, my lover, my master, my monster, my…

Mine.


	4. Shadows

hellsing-drops #41: "shadow"

* * *

It's better in the dark. Daylight stings, and feels unnatural, and the electric glare of lamps is blinding. The shadows throw lunatic shapes over the planes of his body, stark white skin contrasting with black, and those eyes, those _eyes _staring out at her. Candlelight glints off canines, a Cheshire grin in the dark.

She wonders what she must look like, mouth panting, lips painted red with a mess of blood. She doesn't know how much of a monster she looks, all teeth and lips and bloody eyes, her hair almost white. Her eyes look something like his.

In the shadows they merge, light and dark playing tricks on the eye until they look like one creature. Even more than that, they merge further, in_to_ the shadows, as he calls them to him. She had thought he only did this in battle, but it seems she was wrong. She gasps as over her shoulder she watches him shift, change, and then it's not just his hands and mouth and cock but something else besides but she doesn't care because it's all him. She's gasping and moaning, her fingers curling into claws and latching onto the sheet beneath her, ripping little gashes in the old cotton. He bites lightly at the back of her neck and she hears - feels - him growl so low and then his teeth are in her shoulder and it's almost more than she can take.

"Yes, ahhh … God yesss…" she whimpers, a constant stream of moans and exclamations and expletives flowing from her mouth. "Masterrrrrr…"

The title isn't strictly accurate anymore, but it's instinctive, and she's all instinct now. She lets out a low wordless moan and arches her back, her forehead now pressed against the ripped sheets, her teeth bared in a gasping snarl as she comes harder than she ever has…

He always had loved to see her squirm.


	5. Dead in Hollywood

"It's a part of your heritage, you know." Seras wrinkled her nose and eyed the dusty piles of books with distaste. Alucard laughed, the sound deep and mocking, but not harshly so. "Sir Integral might have insisted you read them."

"Really?"

"No, but she probably would have thought them an interesting idea."

"Interesting?"

He grinned. "We were like vicious pets to her; she would have watched your little quest for identity with amusement." He didn't say it with any disdain; if anything he had only the utmost respect for the late Hellsing director, and Seras knew this. "She might have thrown you a copy of Dracula, though."

"Dracula? Seriously?" Seras glanced up at him, still running her bare fingertips over the embossed titles of the old tomes, detailing the history and geography of the area once known as Wallachia. "I thought that was fiction."

"A lot of people think that," he said, reclining back in that throne-like chair of his. "Stoker takes a lot of liberties, twists the facts around considerably, but the bare bones of the story are there."

"And Hollywood?"

His features twisted into an expression of distaste, and she couldn't help but laugh. "I've remained blessedly distant from my celluloid representations."

"Oh?" Seras knelt playfully at the side of his chair, leaning her elbow on the arm and resting her chin on that arm. "You've never been tempted to see how they play you?"

"Don't be ridiculous," he replied, looking away. However, she knew him well enough to know when it was safe to tease.

"Did you wear a cape and everything?" she asked.

"What?"

"The swishy cape, with the red lining? From every Dracula movie and cartoon ever? Come on, it's iconic."

He sneered slightly, baring one canine in a subtle warning, which she heeded, reluctantly. She was still smiling. "Don't be ridiculous," he said.

"Okay, okay, fine," she conceded, waving one slender hand dismissively. There was a long, awkward pause, a silence which Seras was unwilling to break. After a long time, Alucard huffed quietly and added, almost under his breath, "And don't even get me started on Bela Lugosi."


	6. Switch

"Bite me, police girl," he purrs, then laughs at the absurdity of it. I tangle my fingers in his hair, my other hand raking down his back and drawing blood. He hisses at the sensation, then growls, kissing my throat hungrily, but it's not a hunger for blood. It's for something else, something it seems only I can give him.

I hook my heel over his leg and use the leverage to flip us both, rolling so that I'm straddled atop him and he's arching beneath me, teeth bared, hair coiling, blood brimming up from the little cuts and scratches I've inflicted and which he doesn't want to heal.

I smile and lightly claw his chest, replying, "Sir, yes sir. My master."


	7. Balance

hellsing-drops no. 02: "power"

* * *

"Seras…" His voice was little more than a breathy growl, barely kept under control. He was on his knees on the dusty wood floor, looking up at her with darkened eyes that screamed of hunger and lust. The faint glimmer of light thrown out by the candles flickered over his skin, decorated as it was with myriad little cuts and bite marks.

Seras, perched on the edge of the bed, leaned back on her hands and let a small smile tease the corners of her mouth. She had on a short black dress and vicious heels, and as the old vampire crawled closer she uncrossed her long legs and stopped him with a foot on his shoulder. "What do you say?" she breathed, her voice soft, quiet.

He only growled in reply, baring his teeth, but she shook her head and pressed the spike of her heel into his skin. He turned his head, one bare hand loosely holding her ankle. "I want you to-"

"Ah-ah," Seras said with a laugh. She leant down and took his chin in her hand, tilting his head up. Her teeth glinted as she grinned, and then she kissed him. "You have to say please."


	8. Gift

hellsing-drops #04: "cross"

* * *

"I have something for you."

Seras didn't turn, but caught his eyes in the mirror. She was seated at her dresser, the skirts of her long crimson gown draped about her legs, the ribbons at the back of the corset-like bodice still loose, the ends trailing down her back. She watched him in silence as he stepped forward out of the room's shadows.

He was wearing black; he looked like a gentleman, just stepped out of time. A gentleman with sharp teeth and claws, but a gentleman all the same. He was holding something in his right hand, and Seras eyed his gloved, loose fist with mild curiosity.

"What is it?" she asked. His mouth curved into a crooked smile, the very tip of one canine just visible.

"A surprise," he said in a voice that sounded like warm blood. She raised an eyebrow, but he met her eyes in the mirror and she lowered her gaze.

"Should I close my eyes?"

"If you want," Alucard replied. She did so, and smiled slightly as he leaned down, his long hair falling over her shoulder. The fingertips of his left hand fleetingly ghosted over her bare shoulder, her collarbone, then moved to her throat, then jaw, gently tilting her head up. They then withdrew for a moment, and she felt something cold and heavy come to rest on her chest. She opened her eyes and, in the mirror, saw the little silver crucifix, the chain of which he was carefully fastening at the back of her neck. For an instant she began to smile in surprise and pleasure, before the cool metal gradually began to feel warmer, and then to sting.

"Ah… that hurts…" she murmured, bringing her hand to the little pendant.

He only laughed softly, twisting the fingers of one hand in her hair and placing a teasing kiss at the corner of her jaw. She reached behind her neck to fumble with the catch, panting slightly - instinctively - at the pain. His hand fastened over hers, and, his lips right by her ear, he breathed, "Leave it."


	9. Book

hellsing-drops #13: "book"

* * *

The room was a coiling mass of shadow, blood, and reptilian scales, with the girl seated in the centre, sprawled with languid grace upon the throne-like chair. She held a book in her hand, an old, dusty volume, and her eyes skimmed lazily over the yellowed pages, flitting upward every now and then to check on the other creature in the chamber.

"You're all right?" she asked, her tone distracted. Her master's reply was but a low growl, followed by a hissed intake of dead breath. She watched him squirm for a moment, his back arching, oil black against pale skin, bound and unable to speak. He shuddered, eyes rolling into his head for a moment; she crossed her legs, licked her lower lip, and smiled. "I'll take that as a yes." She chuckled for a second, the sound low in her throat, and returned her attention to her book.


	10. Language

"I am old, police girl," he said, head lowered, a curious look of defeat on his face. He looked it, when he said it; an anachronistic creature, a monster of yore forced to endure while the rest of the world moved on. "Let me rest."

Seras slid closer, taking his chin in her hands and tilting his head up as she sank into his lap, straddling him as he sat in his dusty throne.

"Master," she said. "Alucard." He looked her in the eye, somehow imploring her, with those bloody, old eyes, though his pride would never admit it. She didn't know how to say what she felt - that he _was _old, that he would continue to endure, that he _must_... and that she would be right there to endure and grow ancient by his side. So, instead, she leaned down and she kissed him, trying to send everything she felt through their mental bond which was, she lamented, weaker since her liberation. She put her everything into that kiss, and when she felt his gloved hands on her back, clutching her to him like she was his lost life itself, she knew that there was a chance she had succeeded.


	11. Love

There are times when he misses the old days; nearly all the time, in fact. He spends his cold eternity in reminiscences of the past, of Romania, of coming to England, of his capture and imprisonment. He relives the wars - both of them - and he longs, somewhere deep inside him, in a place he forgot he had, to have time back, to once again kneel before his master. He feels the press of time, the onset of forever, and it leaves him icy and hollow.

But when she looks up at him like that, her ruby eyes so wide and innocent and _alive _- impossibly alive; impossibly, because he's the one who killed her - he feels some of the weight lift, feels some of his youth return to him. Her kiss, her body, her blood; they revive him, and they give him a reason not to simply walk back down to that dark dungeon and stay there forever. If he could love, he believes that this is what it might be like.


End file.
